Online systems select content for presentation to users based on user profile information. The content presented by the online system may be provided by a third party system. The online system maintains user profiles for all the users of the online system. Online systems target users for the presentation of content items based on the user profiles of the users. However, as the number of users and content item viewed by the users increase, the complexity in determining an affinity for a user to a particular content item also increases. Thus making affinity calculation a computing intensive task. Furthermore, a conventional system typically directs a particular content item to users based on users selecting individual connections to direct the particular content item or by directly selecting characteristics of users to receive the particular content item e.g., specific named interests, etc.